The Long Road from Neoliberalism to Neopopulism in ECE: The social paradox of neopopulism and decline of the Left

[full article and abstract in English] We live in a “post-neoliberal world”, as it has been discussed in the mainstream literature, but the vital link between neoliberalism and neopopulism has been rarely discussed. Nowadays in international political science it is very fashionable to criticise the long neoliberal period of the last decades, still its effect on the rise of neopopulism has not yet been properly elaborated. To dig deeper into social background of neopopulism, this paper describes the system of neoliberalism in its three major social subsystems, in the socio-economic, legal-political and cultural-civilizational fields. The historical context situates the dominant period of neoliberalism between the 1970s in the Old World Order (OWO) and in the 2010s in the New World Order (NWO). In general, neoliberalism’s cumulative effects of increasing inequality has produced the current global wave of neopopulism that will be analysed in this paper in its ECE regional version. The neopopulist social paradox is that not only the privileged strata, but also the poorest part of ECE’s societies supports the hard populist elites. Due to the general desecuritization in ECE, the poor have become state dependent for social security, yet paradoxically they vote for their oppressors, widening the social base of this competitive authoritarianism. Thus, the twins of neoliberalism and neopopulism, in their close connections—the main topic of this paper—have produced a “cultural backlash” in ECE along with identity politics, which is high on the political agenda.[straipsnis ir santrauka anglų kalba

Stranputice mađarskih upravnih reformi: od pretjerane političke centralizacije do neuspjeha javnih politika

The paper focuses on the Hungarian administrative reforms in the East-Central European context in order to show that the Hungarian developments have been the worst-case scenario in the process of Europeanization. CEE states have been reluctant to open up towards the Western type of participatory democracy.Therefore, they have not yet reached the stage of good governance, which has eroded their international competitiveness. In this respect, the paper has described the Hungarian developments as the bumpy road with its ups and downs that appeared in the first twenty years. This volatile feature of administrative reforms has been reinforced by the latest developments in the second Orbán government (2010-2014) when the former patronage system in public administration has been turned into a complete merger, i.e. the whole public administration has been over-politicized. This invasion of politics into all levels of public administration with the appointments of loyal party soldiers to the top administrative positions has led to a drastic decline in governance capacity and effectiveness. The recent story of the “colonization of state” by politics in Hungary can be described in the terms of transition from political over-centralization to publicpolicy failures. Furthermore, this failure has to be considered as a sharp divergence from the Europeanization process.Rad je usredotočen na mađarske upravne reforme u kontekstu Središnje i Istočne Europe kako bi se pokazalo da je razvoj događaja u Mađarskoj zapravo najgori mogući scenarij u procesu europeizacije. Do sada su države Središnje i Istočne Europe bile nesklone otvoriti se prema participativnoj demokraciji zapadnoga tipa. Zato još nisu dosegle razinu dobrog upravljanja, što im umanjuje međunarodnu kompetitivnost. Mađarske se okolnosti u radu nazivaju stranputicama da bi se označilo teškoće u prvih dvadeset godina tranzicije. Labilnost upravnih reformi dodatno je ojačana novijim razvojem za vrijeme druge Orbanove vlade (2010.-2014.) kada je prijašnji sustav političkog plijena zamijenjen potpunim spajanjem politike i uprave. Invazija politike na svim razinama javne uprave s imenovanjem lojalnih partijskih vojnika na ključne rukovodeće upravne položaje vodi k drastičnom padu upravljačkog kapaciteta i učinkovitosti. Tako se sadašnja priča o „kolonizaciji države“ od strane politike u Mađarskoj može najbolje opisati u terminima prijelaza s pretjerane političke centralizacije prema neuspjehu javnih politika. Nadalje, taj neuspjeh valja smatrati oštrim otklonom od procesa europeizacije

A globális demokratizálás válsága : Az amerikai demokráciakutatás fősodrának konceptuális kudarca

A demokráciakutatás uralkodó paradigmáját évtizedekre Samuel Huntington műve alakította ki, amely szerint a demokratizálás folyamata elérkezett a harmadik – immár globális– hullámához, ezért a demokratikus átmenet és a konszolidáció voltak a demokrácia elméletének kulcsfogalmai. A demokratizálás nagy eufóriájában azonban felejtésbe merült vagy marginalizálódott az, hogy Huntington elmélete az egyes hullámok között visszaesést, ellenhullámot is diagnosztizált, és utalást tett arra, hogy egy ilyen ellenhullám az általa leírt harmadik hullámot is követheti majd. A kétezres évek végéig a demokratizálás pozitív forgatókönyve érvényben maradt, sőt még a visszaesés kérdésköre sem került érdemi megvitatásra, mintha a globális demokratizálás visszafordíthatatlanná vált volna. A 2010-es években azonban a globális válsággal éles fordulat történt a demokrácia elméletében, és központi témává vált a globális ellenhullám a demokratizálásban. Ez egyben a korábban domináns amerikai demokráciaelmélet kudarcát is meghozta, s ezzel a 2010-es évek második felében a globális demokrácia válsága „hazatért” az Egyesült Államokba. Ez a tanulmány a demokráciakutatás rendkívül széles szakirodalmából csak az amerikainak az európai demokráciaelmélet fővonulata koncepciójának ütközésével, és annak a kelet-közép-európai régióra való hatásával foglalkozik

The tasks of the developing state and the accomplishment of the democratic transition

From the historic perspective of democratic transition, two major waves of institutional reforms can be discerned. In Hungary, the first reform wave came in the late 1980s; as a result, the adaptive “Hungarian model” (entailing early political and economic opening and accelerated privatization) evolved, which brought about a decade-long considerable headstart for Hungary in the field of competitiveness. At the outset of the democratic transition, the first reform wave established the general framework for a democratic state, yet it failed to go any further, and thus created two structural defects in the political system. The new democratic institutional system became, on the one hand, asymmetric and, on the other hand, fragmented. The highly developed macro-policy (that is, its high-level “institutionalisation”) was in stark contrast with the “underdeveloped” state of institutionalisation at the middle- and micro-levels. This asymmetry conserved excessive state power and, at the same time, the political system got fragmented into rival institutions that were not organically interlinked and/or even partially overlapped each other's competences. Furthermore, this twofold deficit led to a chronic and an acute lack of coordination, which brought about serious problems in the course of preparation for accession to the EU. Therefore, the launch of a second wave of reforms became imperative. Albeit the second, catching-up wave of reform started in the mid-1990s and the beginning of each governmental cycle sees yet another try, the reform wave was blocked repeatedly and produced partial results only. On the whole, the second reform wave failed to fulfil its mission, that is, the full-scale establishment of a modern and efficient democratic institutional system. The second reform wave yielded certain partial results, yet it finally failed to come about. Consequently, international competitiveness started to decrease in the in the second half of the 1990s. This process entailed the preservation of the dualistic and heterogeneous nature of the socio-political system. On the one hand, the “dualistic” institutional system was preserved, because although the municipal sector was separated from public administration, no comprehensive reform was implemented in the local government sphere (especially in terms of financial decentralisation or the full-scale establishment of the NUTS system). Consequently, regional municipality units became highly dependent on state administration

INCREASING EUPOPULISM AS A MEGATREND IN EAST CENTRAL EUROPE: FROM FACADE DEMOCRACIES TO VELVET DICTATORSHIPS

Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential election has launched a wave of discussions in the international media and political science literature on “authoritarian populism” and a “populist explosion.” Although this paper also reflects on this new wave of populism in the West, it concentrates on the connections between democracy’s decline and the so-called populist explosion in eastern central Europe (ECE) and closely investigates the Hungarian case within the context of ECE. This paper describes populism in ECE as a product of the transition from fading facade democracies to emerging velvet dictatorships. These velvet dictatorships rely on the soft power of media and communication rather on the hard power of state violence. Paradoxically, the ruling anti-elite populist parties have developed a system of populism from above, managed by the new politico-business elite. Populism (social and national) and Euroscepticism are the two most basic, and twin, terms used to describe these new (semi)authoritarian regimes. Populism and Euroscepticism are convertible; they are two sides of the same coin as they express the same divergence from the EU mainstream. Therefore, this paper introduces the term: Eupopulism